Structo 21

Jack Young LBDSeptember showers. Static storms. Listening to Grace Jones’ ‘Walking in the Rain’. Doing what I’m doing, feeling out of place. Walking out of the rain, into charity shop shelter. Hair soaked, newly bleached blonde, exploding from the storm. My thin...

Vicki Jarrett FittingI was looking for something for the office, something that implied control but not freak. Not that I believe a pair of shoes can reveal anything about anyone’s personality. To get by, especially at work, I have to play the game, or at least appear...

Richard Strachan The Desert SwimmerHis hands were shaking. She had felt it, even half-asleep; the hard pitch to the side, Donnell’s compensating turn, the sense of gravity realigning itself around them. They had nearly flipped. She stared at the road that dragged...

Structo talks to Vicki JarrettVicki Jarrett is a short story writer and novelist from Edinburgh. Since her first completed story, written while she was still working in a chippy, won second prize in the Macallan/Scotland on Sunday short story competition, she has...

Marko Bobetić And what about the church chandelier?The parish priest gasped for breath as he clambered up the stairs, his saddlebags swaying from one side of the staircase to the other. Behind him trailed the church warden, a dry old man, both hands gripped tight...

Alex Aspden VVaterlooMint Street, SE1. The sound of the bells every morning. Tiny bells. Barely perceptible. Each rung by a withered hand. An orchestra of slow tinkles. The sound echoing the hands that ring them. Aged and ponderous. All except Mrs Blanker. She can...

Ben Tufnell HolesI My father liked to call himself an Apiarist, which I think tells you a lot about him. He would puff with pride when asked and carefully explain: it is a person who works with and cares for honeybees. Ahh, the questioner might say, you mean a...

Ian Critchley Upper KutzChristmas Eve at Upper Kutz and we’ve got the tree in the window with all the lights and baubles. There’s tinsel around the mirrors and a mix of Christmas tunes on shuffle. We’ve already heard Wham! three times. The punters have been coming in...

Beth Cochrane BreadcrumbsShe said it was a great night. Just a bit different, you know?’ Gary repeats what his water-cooler-colleague had told him. She had also reported that her husband hated it and wouldn’t talk about it afterwards, but his father had died recently...

Lucy Peters Don’t go, Jason WaterfallsSince the break-up I hadn’t started spending any more time with my friends, or my parents, or going on dates; instead I got up early on Saturday mornings and went across town to the British Library to drink rocket-fuel coffee and...

Adam Welch It is what it is, it wants what it wantsIt’s just a muscle, isn’t it though, says Caz. It serves a very prosaic function, he says. He is leaning in towards the girl. His chair is tipped forwards. His body is balanced on his sharp, scabbed elbows, which are...

Timothy Dodd For the Birds“You’re so pious, Theo,” Saspia said to me on more than one occasion when we were working together at the bakery. “I hope you’ll put a good word in with God for me so I can get into heaven.” Uncle Amos always says she’s only teasing me. It’s...

David Gerow Story for Circular Breathers130 years after the construction of St Cecilia’s Anglican Church & 2 decades since it was repurposed as The Jam Jar (London’s #1 EuroFunk venue), this cavernous hall welcomes a new audience, one that neither worships nor...